


Distant Shores - Somewhere In Time

by Certainlittlesmile



Category: Blades of Light and Shadow (Visual Novel), Distant Shores (Visual Novel)
Genre: Crossover, F/M, Gift Exchange, Secret Santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:07:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28259709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Certainlittlesmile/pseuds/Certainlittlesmile
Summary: Commodore Oliver Cochrane sets out to find his lost love somewhere in time, and meets an unexpected companion.
Relationships: Oliver Cochrane/Main Character (Distant Shores)
Kudos: 2





	Distant Shores - Somewhere In Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hemisemidemigod](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=hemisemidemigod).



> Hello! I have written this one-shot for hemisemidemigod on Instagram as part of the "secret Santa" gift exchange.  
> I hope you like it!  
> Merry Christmas :)

Commodore Oliver Cochrane’s voyage was lonely and bleak. A far cry from his Navy officer days, this journey was of a personal nature. His boat, though large enough for one to live comfortably on, was the smallest he had ever captained. His mission was the toughest he had ever accepted.

He and Alex had been happy for several years after settling in England. He’d hoped that by settling on land he would not risk losing her again to the future. They had married; Charlie and Edward had been given temporary entrance to the country to attend the wedding. Alex had taken a job as a schoolteacher in the village they had settled in, teaching the older children, while Oliver had turned his hand to training the brightest Royal Navy recruits at a base close to their village.

Alex had often talked about her previous life, in the New World of the future, but had never suggested that she wanted to return to it for a third time. He could always tell from her eyes, however, how she yearned to return to the life in-between, the life at sea, the pirate life. And while he had missed it, and they would often talk about going to sea together again one day, it was always a “one day”. No plans were made.

Then came the day that he woke in bed and she was gone.

He waited a week, a month, almost a year. She did not come back.

He knew he had no choice. He had to look for her. Leaving messages with his colleagues, he handed in his notice, and bought the vessel, which he named the _Storm_ in Alex’s honour. If his theory was correct, and she had returned to her original life, though she might try to get back to their life in London, he felt it more likely she would return to the seas.

The letter that had been sent to the _Poseidon’s Revenge_ crew, to be received at one of their regular docking places, went unanswered. He decided he had to make his way there for Alex, it was the only thing he felt he could do, but this was his journey, he would do it alone. 

And he had done it alone; through rough seas and dark skies, months on end he had gruelled through the oceans. But days ago, he had arrived in the very village where he had first set eyes on Alex, the place where the letter had been delivered to. The letter still remained uncollected behind the bar of the Tavern. The _Revenge_ had not returned there for many months.

Distraught, he’d stayed a few nights, unable to decide what to do next. He’d been so certain that Robert, Charlie and the rest of the crew would have known what to do to help bring her back; that they could retrace whatever they’d done last time and somehow reconnected with her.

There was only one thing for it. He would have to continue his voyage and find them.

A journey without destination; reuniting him with his true love its only aim. Alex would have thought it all so romantic and adventurous, but to him it was a necessary path.

He cast off on a cold sunny morning when the sea was calm. After a few hours sailing, he decided to take a break, letting the boat meander, wandering into his cabin where a number of bottles of rum were secreted. Life with the pirates had definitely given him a taste for the liquor. He sat on the floor, his thoughts blank, his life empty.

He heard a rustling on the deck.

He stood back up, and listened carefully. Had someone or something stowed away on the boat when he’d left the village harbour?

He made his way back to the deck. It was almost a vibration.. and it was coming from one of his packs of supplies that he hadn’t yet stowed into the cabin yet.

He looked into the pack to see a small leather satchel that he didn’t recognise, pulsing and rumbling against his other possessions.

_What in the blazes?_

He opened the satchel to find a green crystal; he had never seen such a jewel before in all of his days at sea. The crystal began to implode and crackle, shimmering light surrounding it. For half a second, he had renewed hope that this was a sign from Peyton.

Then the crystal shattered, glowing fragments littering the deck of the boat. Oliver had to cover his eyes for a second, such was the intensity of the glow.

And when he uncovered them, there was a winged cat sitting in front of him. It meowed a few times at him, while his puzzled brain tried and failed to unscramble anything that made sense about this situation. Perhaps this was a hallucination? A dream?

Eventually he went with it, and reached down to pet the cat on its head. “Well now, I’m sure enough I can keep you in fish if you want to be my crewmate. Let’s call you Moggy Roger.”

The cat just glared at him. “Why would you call me that? My name’s Threep.”

Oliver laughed. “Okay. A talking cat. I’m clearly unwell.”

“ _Cat?_ It gets only worse. I am a Nesper.”

“What’s a Nesper?”

“Well, only one of the beloved advisers of the ancient elves, that’s what. And you don’t look very elven, so I think I’m going to take a nap…”

Oliver sighed. “Nap away, I think I need to snap out of this…”

“But not before a snack, of course.” He looked around the deck and licked his lips.

“Well, the ocean’s yours for fishing in, my friend,” Oliver said.

"Do you not know how important I am?”

The cat’s eyes were wide and proud, and Oliver smiled. “Okay then.” He headed into the cabin and brought out a few strips of meat. He dropped them at the cat’s feet, and the cat pounced, devouring it hungrily.

“Mmmm. Delicious. When you haven’t eaten for a century any food will do, but that… Thank you…..”

“Oliver,” he told him. “And, you’re welcome. And I stand by what I said. You’re welcome to stay aboard, assuming you won’t grow to twice my size and eat me.”

“Not possible,” Threep said, settling down and starting to groom himself.

Oliver shook his head. “Well, I wouldn’t have thought a bat-cat coming out of a crystal was possible until five minutes ago..”

“Please. Don’t call me that. It’s disrespectful, and you seem so charming. Tell me, Oliver. Why is a handsome chap like you sailing the seven seas alone?”

Oliver stared out to sea. “To be honest? I don’t know.”

“So you don’t know. Well, may I take a guess?”

He nodded, gazing at the horizon.

“Your lost love. You don’t know how to find her.”

“How would you know?” Oliver was shocked.

"Take a look in the bag,” Threep told him. “The one I was in.”

Oliver frowned at him, and did as he was told. He gasped when he realised what was inside it. It was an old, bronze compass, cracked and weathered. Identical to the one which had brought Alex here.

But this meant..

He looked down curiously at the vesper.

“She came by, perhaps a hundred years or more ago. She left this with me. Said if you ever came by, I was to follow you. Keep you company.”

“But.. this means…” Oliver felt as if his heart was being crushed inside him. “She came back to the wrong time.”

He wandered over to the wall of the cabin, and slumped to the deck.

“Alex was smart,” Threep said. “She had faith in the fact that she would find you again. Somewhere in time. And that’s where I came in.”

"Why would you agree to that?” Oliver pondered, his eyes glassy.

“Because I didn’t trust those pirates she went off with,” he explained. “I got serious Mal vibes from the captain, and not in a good way. I figured they might make me walk the plank. A long nap of indeterminate length sounded like a better option.”

Oliver laughed. “Alex always loved the pirate life. What else did she tell you? What had she been doing since we parted?”

“She said she’d continued her teaching career in the future. At a high school called Berry High.”

"Sounds incredibly modern,” Oliver said. He picked up the compass. “Without this, though… how will she be able to get back to.. forward to… this time?”

His mind drifted back to the night she had left him for the first time. She hadn’t had the compass then. She hadn’t even wanted to go.

"She told me to tell you she’ll find you,” Threep said. “She just needed more time.”

Oliver felt a tear running down his cheek, and Threep stood up and curled himself between Oliver’s legs, purring and butting his head against them.

Eventually, Oliver picked him up.

“So, Threep. Where do you want to go?”

“I wouldn’t mind heading back to wherever Undermount is now, see if I can’t find some of my ancestors.”

“Sounds as good a destination as any, once we work out where that is,” Oliver sighed. He placed Threep back down, and looked up into the sky. He could go anywhere; his new companion had given him renewed hope that Alex would find him again, somehow, someday.

As Threep curled up for the threatened nap, he watched with rediscovered joy as the birds flew across the brightening sky. Then he headed towards the _Storm’s_ controls and set a south-westerly direction.


End file.
